( A small rewrite of certain POV’s from an angry lizard. Not cut under READ more because my tumblr theme will make your eyes bleed with large sections of paragraphs. Warnings include: violence, gory stuff, hedonistic crap and all those fun things. )
It starts when the threads lead to nothing. The channels weave into the pit of something, but what is it? Breath hitches; the blank space remains. Keloch doesn't have much time to wonder before he instinctively draws his hand away from Erden's wretched mouth. A mouth that can only smile and sputter the last words of a dying man, so close-- and yet..
"Wait."
He looks to Raphael carefully, gold meeting blue, then to the sword already beginning to saw into Erden's scaled throat. "I can't feel anything." Nothing at all. Emptiness. A vastness. He knows this feeling. The Halfblood yields to the request with measured curiosity. The pair were meant to bleed the Uyagir out and take everything that remains, but Keloch's aetherical senses speak otherwise. It was like tapping into a dry land for water and there is no oasis in sight. How? A wild look spares to the blackened veins clutching the center of Erden's chest, they roil beneath - alive, like some kind of creature. Parasite.
Another heartbeat closes in; the door opens and closes in a rush of excitement. Anxiety. Its Duroxas. Of course it is. Keloch can see he's already focused on the bound Erden, "BOTH OF YOU-- GET BACK FROM HIM!" The shout carries in the chambered space, vibrating into his horns something awful. His own chest swells with sudden seething frustrations as realization sets in to the words that spew from the red skinned man. Something must have been done to Erden, their prisoner, THEIR kill.
Words exchange between the onlookers. He barely registers them; warnings, explanations, a compound of voices resulting in a circle of blame. Pity, annoyances. At one point, there's a distinct scent of burning flesh as Raphael manages to skewer Erden's palm with a smoldering hot poker.
Duro's maddening words suddenly cut into the brink of the Buduga's patience, rattling a familiar hunger, "His aether is rotted."
That can't be.
All of this for nothing?
What about Seiun?
---It wasn't yours to take.
Golden eyes sanction to the Xaela who still lays prone, shackled to table. With a blink, Keloch loses time - already at the side of the table in a magnetic pull. Vindi is at his flank, Raphael across the pitiful display. The gleam of a dagger snaps Keloch's attention swiftly to the blood that now flows from Erden's mouth as the Ishgardian reaps through flesh, slicing the owner's tongue clean out. He inhales sharply and doesn't blink twice, so wholly transfixed that Vindi's attempt to distract bids no reaction.
Salt and metal. Salt and metal.
The heavy scent of the gore comes washing through in a surf of Erden's whimpers and gurglings as someone lifts those chained restraints. Its only when the prisoner sits up, does it cue an instinct from the depths of the Buduga. For the throat -- tear it out -- he grabs again, pinning Erden down with enough force to make his head bounce against wood. The pain doesn't come, not even when Erden fights back and claws into his sleeves through the layers of fabric in pathetic instinct.
"Keloch. It's done." Raphael's voice, ubiquitous ringing.
It wasn't yours to take.
There has to be something left.
"Keloch."
Another slam of skull to the table. There's a grotesque crack of teeth clacking together in finality and Erden goes dark in a slump of weight.
It wasn't yours to take!
Taking in air burns his lungs, as if he'd forgotten to actually breathe through the fine lines of the inbetween. Hands are at his horns suddenly, Raphael's hands, and the Xaela's eyes grow wide while the weight as the Isghardian pulls them close to face level. Don't look, don't look. Something is uttered, but all Keloch can hear -- feel, are the vibrations and the weight of the tone that transcends normal signals.
Wordlessly, he follows. The tethered hand is squeezed as they reach the tide, wading into the shallows ankle deep across the beach. Keloch can only seethe at the very serenity of the water, the way it pulls back and forth, endless cycling of soft waves crashing in a buzz to his horns. But there's a drumming there, louder than ever, louder than the hearts in range thumping their rhythmic chorus. It's so much that he doesn't even feel armor being peeled away, pauldrons lifted like a burden, or the coaxing feather-light touches of guidance.
None of it matters.
Then a pulse fluctuates; familiar aether - so thin it might break apart between them before it reaches the center. Keloch turns to stare down at Raphael who bids whispers, ushering to dip into the wading tides at their feet. It's cold. But there's that nagging again, those terrible urges, they have him obeying but only to snatch massive hands around the Isghardian's neck.
Calm. Those eyes were calm, knowing.. any other time they might have infuriated him. The chill of the ocean creeps to the giant's wrists with pale salted hands. Keloch just looks harder, focusing to find the face through the haze, anchoring once he feels the throat's pulse inching delicately beneath heavy palms. It would be so easy to just . . .
now, now, now---!
The call is loud, burning through Keloch's skin and bone in the wasteland of his aetherpool. So empty, he's starving. His teeth bare, glinting dangerously in the dimming sun of the horizon.
So easy, so easy.
Sun looks to meet moon again in a drawn gaze, to where a memory and melody sings. It digs its way to the surface of that snarling expression that's inches away from ripping chunks from Raphael's face. But just like that, Keloch's shoulders ease and fingers drift from that neck and massive giant surrenders into the Halfblood's chest. Deep breaths; Keloch gasps for air that was far from stolen, but yearned for in the struggle. It was too close for comfort.
Mild panic hangs in a soft noise, catching into his throat as Raphael cups his face in his hands, lifting. Of course, of course he doesn't tear away and their foreheads meet in this odd unspoken gesture. But what had he done? What did he almost just fucking do? The questions manifesting mentally abruptly end when Duroxas' presence is felt nearby. Foreboding.
"Do you have any of those potions, Duro. Or crystals."
"What sort -- aether..?"
"Or-- even your own would help. Aether."
Don't do this. Bad idea. You fucking dumbass. The Buduga's eyes widen to saucers. But Duroxas approaches and sits within arms reach, all in offering. Dinner bells. It was all that was needed for the calm to recede, the world 's on fire again - smoldering with aether that rips away at the red skinned Xaela, whose now squared on his spine and eating sand with face. A claim lays across their throat with claws biting into darkened scale, to the flesh; it seems to be a theme here - but a working one at that.
Drowning, Keloch could be drowning and still it isn't enough. Never enough. The pull he takes from the mage is terrible, raking away sublime levels of magic in a vortex that seems endless. Runes burn white, shining past the blue hue across Keloch's dark skin. Now there's a familiar hand at the nape of his neck, pressing with cooled committment, -- tap, tap, tap-- like rapping at a door.
The light seeps in through the cracks, another channel is opened.
“Just a little more.” It's Raphael again, coaxing. But it doesn't take much to convince a beast to keep biting when it's teeth were lodged so deeply to begin with. However, the magic suddenly seems insignificant as something else catches the Buduga's senses. It's a scent he's oh-so familair with, surging all attention away from Duroxas to the shining beacon of magics just a few breaths away. Who was it--? Vindi? No. The face didn't matter. All that was left was the hunger.
“Keloch, how are you feeling?” The Halfblood inquires almost innocently.
Again, he bares his teeth – finding footing in the sand in a rise of posture. Unblinking, the Xaela turns to what he perceives as nothing but a festering junction of primordial fuel. The implication sets in the taut square of his shoulders of what he would do next. “Empty.”
Pale fingers grab for his face, inching across the scales, “We will go hunting.” A promise, a plea maybe from Raphael. But Keloch – he can't hear it and tears away in favor for lunging across the sands. To that beacon, the air thickens with potent magics – A FEAST. His bones and blood sing for it, driving him forward in blinding speeds. But a few feet is all that Keloch manages before a noise from behind catches his horns – a splash, a thud, Raphael’s yell strangles loose before the quiet.
He jerks his head to look back & all goes dark.
‘ What is it like being a tool of fate? ’
@thegodnameddream @seiunuyagir @duroxas @vindiraysa @ranirus (just for that last pinch)